Integrated Multidisciplinary Constrained Optimization of Offshore Support Structures

Integrated Multidisciplinary Constrained Optimization of Offshore Support Structures

Haghi, R.
Ashuri, T.
Van der Valk, P.L.C.
Molenaar, D.P.

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Precision and Microsystems Engineering

2014-12-31

In the current offshore wind turbine support structure design method, the tower and foundation, which form the support structure are designed separately by the turbine and foundation designer. This method yields a suboptimal design and it results in a heavy, overdesigned and expensive support structure. This paper presents an integrated multidisciplinary approach to design the tower and foundation simultaneously. Aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, structure and soil mechanics are the modeled disciplines to capture the full dynamic behavior of the foundation and tower under different environmental conditions. The objective function to be minimized is the mass of the support structure. The model includes various design constraints: local and global buckling, modal frequencies, and fatigue damage along different stations of the structure. To show the usefulness of the method, an existing SWT-3.6-107 offshore wind turbine where its tower and foundation are designed separately is used as a case study. The result of the integrated multidisciplinary design optimization shows 12.1% reduction in the mass of the support structure, while satisfying all the design constraints.

fluid dynamics
environmental and earth science

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a0cadae7-71eb-4462-927f-c6cea0564fbf

https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/555/1/012046

IOP Publishing

1742-6588

Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 555 (1), 2014

Institutional Repository

journal article

(c) 2014 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence